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Playground of the Gods 




And Other Poems 



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PS 3515 
I.U642 
P5 
1921 
Copy 1 



By ELIZABETH HUNTINGTON 



FOUR SEAS COMPANY /. PUBLISHERS .*. BOSTON 



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C[QEUUGHT DEPOSm 



THE PLAYGROUND OP THE GODS 



THE PLAYGROUND 
OF THE GODS 

And other Poems 



BY 

ELIZABETH HUNTINGTON 




Boston 

The Four Seas Company 

1921 



Copyright, ip2i, by * ^ (A'd^\ 
The Four Seas Company * 



DEC 19 1921 



g)f;U554594 



The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



■-Vv^ 



FOREWORD 

TO wish — and to try — to write poetry is to 
turn one's face toward a great and solemn 
mystery. He who has in him the mere ingredients 
of poetic appreciation feels that; and if he is stilled 
and sobered by the thought, how much greater is 
his awe, who would not only read in trembling 
expectation the poetry of others, but who would 
himself cast off his coil of handicap — whether it 
be circumstance, or sloth, or sheer embarrassment 
how to advance — and enter into that sublime and 
terrible contest wherein whoever would succeed 
must stake as his goal his consecrated self? The 
realization is sufficient to keep such an one nib- 
bling his pencil stub and eyeing his quire of paper 
(for which, if he be a proper poet, he has probably 
paid the price of a supper) in a state of inexpress- 
iveness while hope lasts. "Fortunate," sang 
Homer, *'is he whomsoever the Muses love, and 
sweet flows his voice from his lips." True, but 
one who stands tremulous at the foot of Helicon, 
musing on the unknown beings who haunt the 
fertile slopes, the gushing fountains and the 
mellow marbles waiting eternally behind the mists 
and the dark and the implacable steepness, cannot 
be sure that he is so beloved. 



FOREWORD 

But he has no doubt received from time to 
time — in the liquid rustle of poplars, or the pres- 
sure of a worshipped hand, or a lovely face seen 
once; in the perilous wild gold of autumn fields; 
through a friendship, a printed line, or the name- 
less stir in the blood on certain clear, blue morn- 
ings — that which he presumes to be a hint of 
favor. And so he takes breathless leave of his 
tangible existence — his work-a-day humors and 
obligations — and addresses himself to the ghostly 
and arduous ascent. 

How far he will climb, whether or no he will 
at last turn back convinced that the shrouded 
splendor is not for him to help to reveal, is known 
only to those austere presences who, eternally 
silent and eternally aware, look down upon each 
effort from their everlasting heights. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Invocation ii 

Severn's Drawing of Dying Keats .... 12 

Recognition 13 

Poets' Litany 14 

Unfulfilled 15 

Paolo to Francesca 16 

Melrose — Evening 17 

Lines 18 

"Ecce Deus Fortior Me" ....... 19 

Expectant 20 

After a Loss 21 

Inarticulate 22 

The Scholar in Love 23 

To 25 

Lines 2y 

To A Statue of Diana 28 

Inspiration 29 

Predestined 30 

Fragment 32 

Spring Song 33 

Petition 35 

Reincarnate 36 

A Poem 37 

Samson to Delilah 38 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Despair 43 

Nocturne 44 

To John Keats 45 

Impossible 46 

Matutinal 47 

Death 48 

Lines 49 

THE PLAYGROUND OF THE GODS 

Endymion 53 

Psyche in Cupid's Palace 55 

Proserpine 56 

The Cyclops 58 

Narcissus 60 

Daphne Delivered 61 



THE PLAYGROUND OP THE GODS 



INVOCATION 

Life-giving Spirit of Poetry, breathe on me! 
Teach my slow hand and indeterminate mind 
To dream and execute thy minstrelsy! 
Turn my dim thoughts to heights where they shall 

find 
Chill brooklets gurgling forth eternally 
To catch the eternal comfort of the sun — 
And poplars murmuring secrets vernally, 
And spring-starred moorlands where the deep 

winds run. 
O take my colorless breath, and make from it 
A sentence beautiful as sounds that flit 
Across the morning meadows on a day 
When April's vanished, and immortal May 
Wakes smiling on the hillsides, her sweet eyes 
Unfolding in unnumbered flowers, and cries 
Of stirring birds her countless voices, and 
Ungathered mist the pressure of her hand. 
Great Spirit! Leafy Power! Thou Voice of flelds 
And deepening woods! Thou Sense that green 

earth yields ! 
Thou Soul of sun and waters! Come to me — 
And set the springtime of my music free! 



[11] 



SEVERN'S DRAWING OF DYING KEATS 

Turned from the shadows is the spare, rich face — 
Confusedly, the dank and tired head 
Rolls sideward, groping for a softer place ; 
And morning freshly stirs the crumpled bed. 

The mellow mouth, the long, decisive brows 
And harsh-afflicted throat, the draggled hair, 
The old, cruel transformations, droop and 

drowse — 
And all that splendid speaking's silent there. 

And last of all the sacramental line: 
"A deadly sweat was on him all this night." 
O God ! How his own moon once more does shine ! 
How spring still blows herself from green , to 
white ! 



[12] 



RECOGNITION 

Not know you now? Dear God! When have I 

ceased 
My search for you? You've passed me frigid- 
fleeced 
In bitter winter sunsets, and you've grieved 
Through Hngering leaves grown brittle and be- 
reaved. 
Hushed light on snow, the mute and marvellous 

mesh 
Of tangled flowers, prophesied your flesh, 
And dimly dawning bird calls rippling air 
Washed sweet in Heaven had your breath. — ^Your 

hair 
Was darkness falling. Some word of your head 
By every blue-brimmed flower has been said 
A score of Maytime mornings, and your eyes 
Have looked upon me from unnumbered skies. 
O, fragrant, fragile crimson have you blown 
In petals round me! Frosty-set, you've grown 
From every sparkling, singing star — and rest 
In inarticulate dusk foretold your breast. 



[13] 



POETS* LITANY 

From twilight in each darkening vein, 

From shaded, troubled blood, 

From pulse grown intricate with pain, 

From Autumn fire and flood 

Within the soul — 

O make us whole! 

Deliver us! 

From the rich ache of words that flow 

Unwritten to our hearts, 

And ebb again — from sap and snow. 

From April's ferny darts 

Sprung from the fresh 

Mould of our flesh — 

O set us free! 



[14] 



UNFULFILLED 

O I shall die, some unremembered day, 
Not ever having made the world aware 
Of your lost loveliness — too late to say 
One perfect word about your perished hair. 

Only a last dry swirl of autumn leaves, 

My heart once more caught to the lingering sun — 

A final quietude that grips and grieves, 

The singing silent, and the daylight done. 

Into the lone adventure I shall go, 

The rhythms in my darkening brain yet strong — 

Dear Heart! Dear Love! — ^And you will never 

know 
God found me trying still to sing your song. 



[15] 



PAOLO TO FRANCESCA 

You ask me what's your beauty. In your eyes 
The rapt renewal of blue morning lies, 
And in and out of your most glorious hair 
Beat endless sunsets. The chaste autumn air 
Abides about your brows, and that soft-hued, 
Immaculate dream — that star-spun solitude 
That we call twilight — sleeps between your hands. 
When you but speak, far surf to desolate sands 
Creeps sighing, and some slow red death of day 
That happened long ago recurs; and gay 
Leaf shapes and shadows — they that used to 

dance 
Blithely to Pan's cleft footfalls — once more glance 
Across a meadow lying velvet-green 
In the soft arms of beauty that has been. 
Narcissus' waxen sweetness droops again 
Upon his envious pool — a fragile pain 
That melts in crystal — when you turn your head, 
And that old loveliness — now long time dead — 
The pallid-petaled, brief anemone 
That intrigued beauty-mad Persephone, 
Sways in your pulses. O the countless flowers 
That grow in all your looks! The murmurous 

hours 
Of fragrant, fervid fruits, rich-drooping after 
Engendering rains, that drowse behind your 
laughter! 



[16] 



MELRO SE— EVENING 

The keen Scotch air and the strong Scotch hills, 

A sense of waterfalls — half heard 

In the darkening healthfulness — that fills 

Each thickening shade, while little Tweed spills. 

And the night receives the voice of a bird. 

Black patches that are soon to merge 
Into a mauve, unquiet sea — 
The unknown voice and the unguessed urge 
Of twilight — and late winds that purge 
All but clear peace from the heart of me. 



[17] 



LINES 

Until I saw snow falling on your hair 

I did not know that beauty could be bom 

So casually — from quiet midnight air 

And chill, untroubled moisture, and forlorn 

Mid-winter depths. O dearly loved! It came 

So softly down, without one agony — 

Except my slow breath stumbling on your name, 

And travail in the deep, deep heart of me. 



[18] 



"ECCE DEUS FORTIOR ME'* 

Slowly, and travailling with the infinite pangs 
Of beauty to be born, let me bring forth 
One word. All day I've agonized and roamed — 
Great with the intricate misery of song — 
Where flowers grew tearfully in gathering mist, 
And fresh-clipped, chilly hills rolled in between 
My heart and the watery distances; where all 
The loveliness was lovelier for my pain, 
And all the dews more subtle for my need — 
Because I, unprepared, had seen the face. 
To see which I'd been tortuously conceived 
And bom, and wafted wonderingly along 
The beauteous, winding passages of growth — 
Dark, and a dim sweet power of petals blown ; 
Dawn, and a gradual pulse of silver sound; 
Cold hollows dripping ripe and languid rains. 
And wind along lush meadows, and the moon 
A somber yellow over deep-drenched moors — 
Because I'd heard the voice of voices speak — 
Because — O Life! O Living! Two strange hands 
Had closed around my soul. — Because I loved. 



[19] 



EXPECTANT 

Out of the mellow, moonlit night 

A mystic vapor, cold and white; 

Up to the palpitating skies 

The night-time's thin and eerie cries; 

Over the fragile face of the trees 

The restless fingers of the breeze; 

Starting to meet you, as you come, 

The heart's quick throbbing, fierce and dumb. 



[20] 



AFTER A LOSS 

God, take not these from me! Leave the sun 
Swooning in passion on a beauteous sea, 

Lush grasses where moist breezes still can run, 
And one rapt star — a silver threnody — 
Sounding in Heaven when the day is done. 

Let woodbine still assuage the yearning night 
With sweetness, and wet violets yet suspire 
Their purple breaths; leave hyacinths still white, 
And poplars still a soft and shimmering choir 
Forever singing of a cool, cool light. 

1 am content, if only I can see 

Flowers still growing, and the deathless stars — 
Sense warm, unuttered showers, and still be 
Transfigured by the mute and fiery bars 
Of sunrise, and the long love of some tree. 



[21] 



INARTICULATE 

You are not mortal — you are summer's birth, 
September's smouldering sorrow, and the haze 
Engendering the world with greener days 
When mellow rains enrich the drowsy earth. 



[22] 



THE SCHOLAR IN LOVE 

This beauty that I'm reading, dear, is more 
Than sounding waves upon a sounding shore — 
And more than sacred groves of austere oak 
Where Grecian Jove in Grecian grandeur spoke, 
While pure-eyed skies grew dim, and sunny air 
Cooled in the sound, and blew a warning where 
The artless shepherd, on his hill's thick green 
Reclining — half his child's mind on the sheen 
Of snow-piled Chelmos, and the rest to keep 
The docile bleating of his wooly sheep 
Within his ear — puffs out his cheeks, and fills 
With reedy joy his willow pipe, and thrills 
The noontide musing of some creature, made — 
Apollo's whim! — from color, sun and shade. 
And ductile moss, and spongy beds of scent. 
And all this beauty that the god has lent — 
Half in derision — muffled up in coat 
Of shaggy hair, where gold tears — cowslips^ — 

float. 
Caught on the uncouth bristles; cloven feet, 
And such a face as frightens all the sweet 
Lives growing in the wood, who can't believe 
The creature's gentle, too. So must he grieve 
The piney hours away in solitude, 
His unseen self as exquisitely hued 
As that that's seen is ugly. More than these — 
More than the dryads drowsing in the trees, 
And than Diana leaving her far sky 
To find Endymion's anguish out, and try 

[23] 



To soothe it on her bosom frosty-white 
Till fresh Aurora stoops her cheek to night, 
With all her rosy winds just up and blowing 
The damps of sleep from earth, and gladly flowing 
From stream to mountain and from hill to vale, 
And filling every slack and simple sail 
For early, nut-brown fishers — more than all 
That here is written' s here — for your words fall 
Among the beauteous rhythms, and your face 
Turns toward me at the same time that some 

grace 
That must have been much like it fills vdth song 
A young Arcadian lover. You belong — 
You whom I love! — immortally among 
The hills where Hellas' soul was seen and sung — 
Your feet upon her grasses, and your heart 
Of all her lovely world the loveliest part. 



[24] 



TO 



*'0, never a doubt but somewhere," so you sang, 
Young flaming minstrel! We who are still here 
Can only wonder if the brave words rang 
About you in some billowy meadow, clear 
With spirit-sunlight, sweet with ghostly flowers, 
When your closed hds relaxed and you looked 

out — 
Transfigured, new-compounded, (dead some 

hours!) 
Musing on what the quiet was about. 

Have they left you your gold, imperious hair? 

Unglorified, is your brow still your own? 

And is your sentient head still proudly thrown 

Back, as in dumb defence of too much joy. 

Back, as in fear of tasting in one breath 

All wisdom, all experience? Part sheer boy, 

The other part of you as old as death? 

But you have missed — O, surely! — in those calm, 

Cold, sacramental winds, familiar flesh 

You cleaved to here on earth. You've yearned for 

balm 
Of some old, mad encounter — sweet, warm mesh 
Of slow-pulsating hair in heat of sun. 
And half averted cheek, — sheer trembling fires 
That maddened you! — and all things ever done 
To give your stormy blood its long desires. 

[25] 



Dear, beautiful, tempestuous, swift lover! 
My heart is breaking for your solitude 
Where only drowsy dreams and echoes hover, 
And where the very air's remotely hued. 
O surely God for you will make exception — 
Not burden you with strange, immaculate bliss, 
But give into your shadowy reception 
One clear-eyed angel whom you still can kiss! 



[26] 



LINES 

Dearest and Best! In that hour to be, 

Of the lifting mists and the changing sea — 

When the deep and sullen tide runs out, 

And the blue waves leap, and the wind's about — 

When the sun in Heaven shines broad and clear 

Through the vast gale whistling: *'You are 

near" — 
When the strong gulls swoop with an eerie cry 
To the deep below from the deep on high — 
Will my heart on that day lie cold and numb, 
Throbbing and whispering: ''You have come?" 

No sound will it make on that distant day 

Of the wind's high shout and the sea's glad play — 

No fragrance or color, and no rite 

Will flower from its fierce delight; 

But like a splendidly falling star 

Will it rush, will it blaze, to the place where you 

are — 
Like a wrecked thing living still, and cast 
Back in the arms of the thundering blast — 
Like the leap of a soul just freed from pain, 
Like a terrible birth, will it struggle and strain — 
Like a tortured leaf that the wild winds shake 
Will it hear you, fear you, tremble, and break. 



[27] 



TO A STATUE OP DIANA 

Dost thou still hope, O being warm and fine! 
To burst the milk-white stone that hems thee in? 
Though fixed in austere marble, dost thou pine 
Once more to cast the form of night, and thin 
The odorous shadows with thy pearly flame — 
To press thy white foot to the mossy crest 
Of Latmos (where Endymion's still a name!) 
And warm the sheep wold to thy pohshed breast? 

Yea, thou dost so — I think the perfect fold 
Of thy two lips just stirred a little then — 
As if to break their full and flawless mould 
And sigh thy sorrow to the hearts of men. 
I know that thy young limbs, though meetly 

locked 
In film of sheerest marble, ache to roam 
Again where once an ocean roared and rocked, 
And sought to reach thee with her dizzy foam. 

Content thee, Spirit with the flame of Greece 
Still burning in thine inapparent blood! 
Lovers once watched for thy cold white increase. 
In salty ripples, on the thundering flood 
Of seas that brightly did thy least behest; 
And clouds of lambent fleece — made so by thee — 
Once danced before thee, thy handmaids con- 
fessed. 
These things are past, but thou — ^hast memory! 



[28] 



INSPIRATION 

Love, look at me — 
And make the future cool 
For agony 
Incarnate in a pool. 

Or speak one word — 
It shall go forth as sound 
Of leaf and bird, 
And wind along the ground. 

And give your touch, 
That I may weep again 
Who have wept much — 
My tears blown down in rain. 

O take my kiss 
Upon you — let me pass 
From pain like this 
To grow again in grass! 



[29] 



PREDESTINED 

For when I first beheld your face, it seemed 

That that rapt moment had been fore-ordained 

While yet the world in drowsing ether swung, 

The radiant sun ungarnered riches, and 

The waters of the earth loose, intricate tone. 

O our two hearts have beat and burst ere this ! 

Perhaps in marbled Corinth, till she oozed 

Beneath the rich-ribbed sands that sucked her sea, 

We breathed a mutual balm of night and love — 

Perhaps a willowy way in Sicily 

Wound through the morning meadows to the 

shore, 
And we two, radiant, followed. — Or on some 
Gray and gaunt battlement that crowned a coast 
Crested with fiery sunset, swept by the high. 
Eternal winds and moistures, we have stood. 
Fearful at our rejoicing. — O I've worn 
Uncounted selves away in beauteous thoughts 
Born to your trembling bosom, and have died 
A million deaths, renewing and recalling 
That lovelier, lonelier ecstasy, your voice! 
For I was born to hear it on(?e, then cease, 
Stricken with sound too beautiful, and pass 
Into autumnal rains on yellow leaves 
Whose amber hearts with that same beauty 

ache — 
To lose my life in wind along the wastes, 
To find it out again, and strangely speak 
In sudden, soft-hued pipings from deep woods — 
And to grow still in quiet pools, and yield 

[30] 



Back beauty to the beauteous grasses there. 
And they who long hereafter sufferers be 
Shall pause at every note of my sweet sounds, 
And press their echoing hearts again and know 
That once my soul sang, having heard you speak. 



[31] 



FRAGMENT 

O there's an ancient woe in all this rain — 
Old trouble in the daylight's bitter end, 
Harsh memories that make the winds blow pain, 
And unhealed sorrow in the dews they rend. 



[32] 



SPRING SONG 

O may I ever see you so, 
In the early green and the early glow 
Of springtide morning — in your eyes 
Lush April's wet and wavering skies, 
And your young voice — O speak again! — 
The heaven of hillsides after rain, 
Piercing with sweet and stinging sound 
Blown buds begot in fruitful ground. 
O let me merge our love begun 
With wondering wildwood — make It one 
With sparkling mists and drenched meads 
Where bluebells chime and bloodroot bleeds- 
And stamp your perilous smile on fields 
Of gathering bloom, and all that yields 
Innocent freshness gladly up — 
Hushed scent within a lily's cup. 
And mystic maidenhood of leaves 
Won by the wastrel wind who grieves 
For close-clipped hills of chilly sheen. 
And watery distances of green. 

And in the age of after-years. 
When willows sigh, and purpling tears 
Start up in tremulous violets weak 
For lovely love that thrushes speak 
Amid the checkered warm and cool, 
And daffodils give to some pool 
Their pale perfections — then may I, 
In every rift of jocund sky 

[33] 



And stir of stem and spark of sun — 
In every birth by Spring begun — 
Peel pulsing in my sentient soul 
The recollection, vernal-whole, 
Of this our morning — hear you speak 
In winds along the earth's green cheek. 
And sense the halo of your hands 
Round roots and rushes, and by sands 
That gently hold the troubled streams 
Renew your clasp — and in sunbeams 
On beauteous mosses throbbing, rest 
My unsung songs upon your breast. 



[34] 



PETITION 

Great, pitying God! Will even You not purge 
Me clear of excess beauty? The cool pain 
Of wet-eyed spring is on me once again, 
And all the swift and scarlet autumn urge. 
Your stars have drained me pallid, and the note 
That swarmed up lately in some blackbird's throat 
Is sounding still; and in my blood there flows 
The current crimson of an endless rose. 

O draw the hush of evening out of me, 
And never let the slowly darkening breast 
Of some lone, lovely hill keep me from rest 
Again. — But set the bird within me free! 
And let my mind's sun sink and richly break — 
Take every moist, intoxicating ache 
That was a flawless flower — and from my brain 
Uproot the deep woods dripping quiet rain. 



[35] 



REINCARNATE 

You are that beauty — are that flowering dawn 
And deep, sweet-lidded musing, and remote, 
Unfathomed leafiness — all wan 
For sight of yours does Paris' face still float 
Round perished Troy; and Perithous is bound 
In mute, perpetual penance underground 
For your heard voice — and young Icarus slips 
To death, his wisdom melted on your lips. 

O perilous breath of deep-sea beauty born 

To fearful Cypress! O clear-chiseled calm 

Of that still lovelier loveliness, forlorn 

In Attic twilights! All the intricate balm 

That swayed insensate Psyche had your breath. 

And drowned Leander's undulating death 

Was wrought for your young breast — and for 

your touch 
Pygmalion loved his marble too, too much! 



[36] 



A POEM 

One wink from a tremulous star, 
One drop on a flower; 
From a glory of music, one bar, 
Prom a lifetime, one hour. 

A crystal-sharp shaft from the moon, 
A mist just begun; 
A stir in the pines as they swoon 
To the heart of the sun. 

• ••••••• 

And from you, who would dare, who would sing- 

Everything! 



[37] 



SAMSON TO DELILAH 

But strange and stern, how I, 
Who, from the womb that bore 
Me in my strength — ay, more 
Than that, than my first cry 
Of lusty living, and 
The sinews of my hand 
Just shaping — before they 
Took form of breathing clay, 
Before my growing brain 
Was more than gradual pain 
To her that bare 
The heavy share 
Of my oncoming; 
And while this blood impassioned 
Lay sluggish and unfashioned, 
Although foretold 
By seers of old, 
And with the thrumming 
Of reed and mystic lyre, 
By scripture and by crier — 
I, who was called The Strong 
In prophecy and song. 
By men of holy sight 
Predicted full of might — 
Who, great with restless brawn, 
Untrammeled and unshorn. 
Was destined but to say: 
"I come — give heed — make way!** 
Was destined but to preach: 
"That which I want, I reach 
[38] 



With these resistless hands, 
Be it your men or lands, 
Your women or your mart — 
So that it draws my heart! — 
While this one stares and quakes, 
Lo, Samson sees — and takes." 
Strange, then, how I, all these 
Possessed of, at mine ease 
And unconstrained, have grown 
At once so meek; have thrown 
Mine heritage to dust. 
My dazzling birthright thrust 
Away — my power cast 
To the receding past. 

Give me thy hand here. Love, 
For evening closes down 
Around us and above — 
Again that sigh, that frown. 
And thou art wearied, while 
My heart bums on! — But smile 
Down at me once — ah, so 
Thou didst smile long ago — 
Or was it lately? I 
Know not — thy smile, my cry. 
Seem faint and far 
As yonder star 
Above us reigning; 
Even thy listless hands 
And brightly-braided strands 
Of perfumed hair 
Are phantoms where 
[39] 



My soul lies straining. 

For in this cedared vale 

Realities turn pale, 

And while yon bright bird sings, 

The awful pomp of kings 

Grows dim; these vivid flowers 

And swift, consuming hours 

Have altered all, and made 

From vital things a shade; 

Here life's a ghost, and mind 

A thing grown dumb and blind; 

The world's a wraith, and thought 

A dear delusion; naught 

Is now, that was — again 

Thou sigh'st — is thy gain 

So little, then? Is all 

This surging strength in thrall 

For thee such meagre thing? 

Ah, well! — But let me bring 

A little of the fear 

And exaltation here 

And speak it out to thee — 

Beloved, bear with me 

Awhile ; all this took place 

That day I saw thy face, 

And my heart's struggling ache 

Must ease itself, or break. 

Delilah, dost thou know — 
As I know, well, so well! — 
What day it was? The snow 
Of Sorek's blossoms fell 

[40] 



About thee as thou gazed 
Seaward, and, all amazed, 
I watched thee. O, the start! 
The furious pulse, the heart 
That strangled, wavered, rushed. 
The blood's rebound that crushed 
The startled tongue 
All mute, and wrung 
The rooted flower 
Of this rebellious soul. 
At once made perfect, whole, 
Conceived complete, 
Reborn to meet 
That throbbing hour — 
Then that swift, piercing pain 
Through flesh, through soul and brain. 
And through the lurid light 
Those far sails, mystic, white — 
Above, the brooding skies. 
And close, thy watchful eyes; 
Beyond, the shrouded ships, 
And near, thy wondering lips — 
O my unbounded pride 
In that one moment died. 
And all my vaunted ease 
Passed from me on the breeze 
That sang about thy hair. 
O Love! O Wonder! There, 
In that wild golden light, 
On that sea-smitten height, 
The strong wind came and tore 
My soul full out, and bore 

[41] 



Him struggling to thy feet — 
For thee to laugh at, Sweet !- 
The savage sunset shook 
My groping brain, and took 
This pulse, this life, this me, 
And gave it up to thee. 



[42] 



DESPAIR 

What is a poem that's made for you^ 
Intricate, infinite Loveliness? 
A frost on the grasses, a cloud in the blue. 
And the moon gone mad for her own caress. 

What is a love, a life, a heart, 
Tortured into your minstrelsy? 
A glory, a yearning, a swoon and a start, 
And — God in Heaven! — a memory. 



[43] 



NOCTURNE 

When the winds of Heaven are sighing, 

And the dews of God come down — 

When the night's still face is lying 

On the beating heart of the ground — 

When the first star shines, 

And the pitying pines 

The dusk in their arms have wound. 

When a mist like love's beginning 

Is gathering in to press 

Earth's cheek — when the day is winning 

A lingering last caress 

Prom the trembling lips 

Of the foliage tips 

That silence with music bless — 

O Love ! In that hour of yearning, 

In the twilight's unended desire. 

My spirit to yours is returning, 

Like music blown back to its lyre — 

Like the heart to its ache, 

And the swan to his lake, 

And the sun to his sources of fire! 



[44] 



TO JOHN KEATS 

Where is thy voice, thy brain with beauty laden, 

Where now thy leafy pilgrimage of song? 

Thy vale, thy hill, thy tremulous youth and 

maiden. 
Thy luscious walks, thy rich, reluctant gong 
Mellow on midnight? Where thy heaped sweets 
Sugared with pyramids of musk and thyme, 
Thy freshest blossoms woven into rhyme 
Round carven cups, or wreathing fragrant meats 
And spongy delicates? The warm lights glowing 
Through frosty quietude, and wet winds flowing 
On latticed love? Blue incense spicy-curling. 
Veined flesh and ruddy lip, and jewelled purling 
Of gentle streams round moss and marigold, 
And bosky beauties that high noontimes hold? 

• •••••••• 

In Rome there is a grave . . . But here, last night. 
The chill and mellow calm — the evening light — 
Cool-couched on leaves along the hill's deep brow. 
Wafted the martyred music that was thou. 



[45] 



IMPOSSIBLE 

Dear Heart, if it were possible, were mine, 

To write you something perfect! If I might 

Melt deep into the infinite, sharp shine 

Of winter sunset — gather frigid light 

To pour around a song you'd love, and frost, 

And crackling, bitter quietude, and blue 

Austerity — and carry all to you. 

With shivering shades by brittle branches tossed. 

Of if, some day when April's laughing, I 
Might phrase forsythia, rhyme a rustling wood 
With spiked, sweet hyacinths, and luscious sigh 
Of rich anemones! O if I could 
Discharge the springtime laughter from one star 
Into one line — ere little birds disperse 
Collect from them some feathery, sweet verse, 
Then take the thing I'd made to where you are! 



[46] 



MATUTINAL 

This early morning in the soft, chill air 
Your touch was on me, beautiful and bleak. 
The motionless gray tree tops held your hair. 
The coldly flushing span of sky, your cheek- 
And in the quietude I heard you speak. 



[47] 



DEATH 

... this best of all: 
There'll be no echo in myself, no call 
Toward stainless rush of springtide winds, and 

singing 
Of rooted meadow bloom, and sibilant swinging 
Of soft-spun fragrance. O, there'll be an end 
To ruthless beauty! Some law will suspend 
The mortal agony of opening flowers, 
And the intolerable autumn hours 
Wild-blowing in my blood. The silent grief 
In coldly shadowed snow will find relief. 
And from my tortured pulses the rich bee 
Will extricate his drowsing, gradually. 
And never more will trees make savage swaying, 
And never more the sun a pitiless praying. 
Against my heart; nor will the darkening pain 
On little twilit lakes be mine again. 
Nor some bird's voice. But there'll be infinite 

sleep. 
Quiet will re-absorb me, deep on deep, — 
Eternally — the unsolved tides will cease. 
And all the unread stars be washed in peace. 



[48] 



LINES 

My dear one! Shall you look at me again — 
Before we pass away from love and living — 
As once you looked? The April light would wane. 
The April darkness wax, as in the giving 
Of that one look, at that one time — O Love! 
Then deeply yearned desirous winds above 
The unfolding breaths, and bosoms dewy white, • 
Of flowers that only yield their sweets to Night, 
In pity for his sighing — we were stilled 
By deep foretaste of agony, and thrilled 
With prophecy of splendor. — Heart of mine! 
All life was breaking forth in stars — but we 
Knew only that the earth with dews like wine 
Was drenched — that every bird had sung his 

song — 
That Spring lay in the breast of every tree — 
And that the trembling night had waited long. 



[49] 



THE PLAYGROUND OP THE GODS 



ENDYMION 

In a deep blue night, on Latmos* height, 

Endymion soundly slept; 

The sheep drowsed still on the frosted hill, 

The streams cold bubbles wept; 

And a shining breeze stirred the dreaming trees, 

And the stars their sparkle kept. 

But the moon looked down, saw the beauteous 

brown 
Of the shepherd, and she shook 
With the unseen flame of an unknown name; 
And the winds her wisdom took, 
While she poured her soul in an aureole 
Around his lonely nook. 

Endymion*s eyes in thick surprise 

Half opened. He had grieved 

So deep and so much for her perfect touch, 

Had been so long bereaved — 

Then he found her lips, and the silver tips 

Of her fingers— and believed. 

O never again, immune to pain, 
Will the moon curve chilly by. 
And never more will her beauty pour 
Its pallor without a sigh. 
Nor her frigid laughter echo after 
Young lovers who cannot die! 

[53] 



For her crystal soul is bitter-whole 

With an ache she never guessed; 

And all her days she will backward gaze 

At the dream of herself caressed — 

At her heavenly light rocked soft and bright 

On the beat of a human breast. 



[54] 



PSYCHE IN CUPID'S PALACE 

Astonished Psyche gazing at her halls 

Of pure proportion — at an opal floor 

Where milky fires smoulder — at wrought walls 

With lustrous, shaded tapestries hung o'er — 

Beyond the perforate pillars, tartly glowing 

With chiseled amethyst and gemmy green, 

A darkening, disconsolate water, showing 

Cool restlessness — the luminous, sweet sheen 

On glades, just visible, where bees are winging 

And where cold lilies shun the eager dew — 

Where jocund bluebells make continuous ringing, 

And where the marigold conceives her hue — 

Young Psyche looking on at all of this, 

And none but casual winds with whom to share 

The secret of her whole bewildered bliss — 

The mystic hands entangling her hair, 

The unseen lips articulate above 

Her quickening heart in darkness, the strange 

face 
Against her bosom, motionless with love, 
The plumy wings, and all the rustling grace 
She has but guessed at in the dead of night — 
Eternal passion in eternal flight! — 
Young Psyche wondering so — O, there's a theme 
A poet would give his melodies to dream! 



[55] 



PROSERPINE 



Into the blue, immaculate spring day 

Ran Proserpine, and flung her down beside 

Rich, fibrous moss. In endless love with play, 

And perfect violets, and grasses pied, 

She passed her cool-tipped fingers out and in 

Of bedded, wind-blown tangles, and the sweet 

Hepaticas fast wooed her to begin 

A gentle crushing of them v^th her feet. 



All day she pulled young lilies frigid frail, 
And passionate anemones who feared 
So deeply she would pass them they grew pale — 
Once plucked — with memory of it. Trees endeared 
Themselves to her, for they would flicker soft 
Above the moistened rootlets of her hair, 
And murmur in her glowing ear, and oft 
Grow still because they found her face so fair. 



And when at last deep evening freshly blew 
Her mellow stars before her, and came down 
Upon the listening vale, Proserpine knew 
That she should go, but lingered still. A crown 
Of waxy petals on her tired head 
Dropped sweetness, and the splendid, spangled 

hush 
Of yearning night crept round her breast, and bred 
Long thoughts that made her weary beauty flush. 

[56] 



And then a barbarous roar, and frightful Dis 
Loomed endlessly before her. Loud she screamed, 
But there was none to hear. He had his kiss, 
While from her startled arms the flowers streamed 
In fragrant fearsomeness. — And Proserpine 
Went sadly down to live among the shades. 
Where no deep-rooted blossoms nod and shine. 
And where there are no juicy, green, grass blades* 

But once each year she breaks captivity. 
And blows in loveliness from sea to sea! 



[57] 



THE CYCLOPS 

When Polyphemus agonized for all 

That perfect Galatea was, he took 

His monstrous self where only the sad call 

Of eerie gulls could find him. One wild look — 

O great, gaunt, single eye! — he cast about 

The huddling flock, who looked amazed to see 

The windy, greenless home he'd found them out, 

Then — all his tawny bulk in agony 

Down-crouched upon a spiney cliff that reaches 

To the resounding surf from sounding beaches 

Of marshy bloom and stagnant, oozy reeds — 

He groped for his coarse implement of song — 

Of fibrous pipes compact — and breathed his needs 

Into the thorny vessel. All along 

The thunderous shore, poor Cyclops, ran the 

smile 
Of her finned playmates whom you dared to love, 
And unplumbed deeps of ocean, in the while 
That your preposterous passion breathed above 
Their sea-green secrets, brighter grew with mirth 
At your mad musing. Play on, Cyclops ! Birth 
By Nereus begot, and soon to be 
Melted from marvellous marble to set free 
The tides of skilled Pygmalion's lone desire 
Was never wrought for you — but higher, higher 
Pitch your rough strain ! And though she'll never 

love you. 
And though the infinite wash of air above you 
Is all of her soul's quiet that you'll know, 
And vapor all her bosom — still, still go 

[58] 



On playing broken melodies — they'll say, 
In some fair time beyond our little day, 
As lovely things as perfect meters do — 
The heart that made them being broken, too. 



[59] 



NARCISSUS 

Narcissus laughed when Echo loved him so. 
O vain Narcissus, what you threw away! 
An energy of violets mad to grow, 
A lovely shade to merge in lovelier day. 

This Echo whom you wasted would have given 
Her bosky breath to have you find her fair — 
You could have had deep foreknowledge of 

Heaven 
Within the whispering wildwood of her hair. 

And all her playfellows — sound, scent and hue, 
White-rooted stalks and ripe, reluctant leaves 
That fold at night — she would have given you, 
And every birch that laughs, and fir that grieves. 

Instead, you blow — as lovely as your name, 
I'll grant, — in solitude. Her voice 
Grown simple sport for mortals, wan and tame, 
Is all of her that's left you — what a choice! 



[60] 



DAPHNE DELIVERED 

Light-hearted Daphne, glowing from her day 
Of breathless sojourning in April wood, 
Came to a meadow where there laughed and lay 
A glistening pool. So cool it looked, she could 
Scarce wait to loose her humid tunic, and 
Kneel down to scoop up bubbles with each hand. 

Her fervent face — a warm, delicious rose 
Fresh-tinctured with still drops — gazed back at 

her 
From crisply curling crystal; her white pose 
Melted deep-tinkling, and began to purr 
Across sharp pebbles; and all round about 
Old moss, her loveliness ran in and out. 

Apollo came imperiously that way, 

His fair, cruel nostrils dilated with green 

And spicy odors of the sprightly day. 

His stormy pulses echoing the sheen 

On waters, vales and mountains, his bright feet 

Turning the spongy ground beneath them sweet. 

He balanced tiptoe on the juicy mead, 
Exulting in her apprehensive head; 
She looked star-eyed upon him; her heart, freed 
From its first tingling panic, dyed her red. 
And then she turned and fled into the mist — 
A sweet no god of beauty could resist. 

[61] 



Each anguished poplar and compassionate oak 
Flung out a darkening arm to lend her aid, 
And young spring beauties whom their own tears 

choke 
Yielded whatever luscious little shade 
Was theirs to give ; and violets half asleep 
Woke richly up to whisper and to weep. 

In spite of all they did, Apollo gained. 

His ardent breath smoked in her wild, wet hair 

Before, of every energy deep-drained, 

She sent to watchful Artemis her prayer: 

"O goddess of clear chastity! O free 

And frigid priestess! Minister to me!" 

The god behind her smiled. One zealous hand 
Had almost snared her drooping, burning cheek 
When all the feverish air grew slowly grand. 
And chilly silver tinged east distant peak — 
And Daphne whisperingly began to be 
A clearly-tipped, ambrosial laurel tree. 

Her limbs took on a tough and fibrous skin, 
With dancing leaves her perfect hair grew loud, 
And balmy bark hemmed pitifully in 
Her grateful bosom. Then a mellow cloud 
Of tree top folded in her young, young breath. 
And lulled it to a greenly rustling death. 

• •■•••••* 

Apollo moved away with somber pace. 
And every tree he passed held up one face. 

[62] 



